IITMAANA Innovation Endowment

The Innovation Fund was envisioned and started by Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan in 2012, founders of Junglee (acquired by Amazon) and Cosmix (acquired by Walmart), to spur and encourage innovation and entreprenuership by students and recent graduates of IIT-M. Subsequently, Raj Narayanaswamy, Kittu Kolluri and Prasad Setty have added to this fund, bringing it up to $500K. An Incubation Cell, consisting of experienced alumni/entreprenuers, reviews proposals and makes investment decisions. During the first year, 5 startups were awarded seed funding in this program. IITMAANA's goal is to grow the fund to $1 Million to seed enough ventures and make it self-sustaining in the long term.